TESTING THE FAITH

Evidence points to forged 'Gospel of Jesus' wife'

'Moving into the realm of the absurd'

Published: 05/05/2014 at 5:24 PM

(WASHINGTON POST) — Last week, an American researcher named Christian Askeland published findings that scholars say represent the most convincing evidence yet that the ‘Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’ is a forgery. The conclusion hinges on two elements. First, an additional fragment provided to Harvard by its anonymous source was not only likely a forgery — but written by the same hand that had authored the “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife.” Second, it was inked in a dialect that academics say didn’t exist at the time it was supposedly written.

“To me, the odds that I’m going to be hit by lightning twice in the same day means [this fragment] is moving into the realm of the absurd,” Askeland, an assistant professor at Germany’s Protestant University Wuppertal, told The Washington Post. “And it goes on and it gets worse and worse from there.”

King was quiet last week. On Sunday, however, she granted her first interview to the New York Times, agreeing that Askeland’s work is legitimate. “This is substantive, it’s worth taking seriously, and it may point in the direction of forgery. This is one option that should receive serious consideration, but I don’t think it’s a done deal.”